Oil varnish on a blanca? (Full Version)

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Perrate -> Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 7 2015 18:58:31)

Dear friends

I`m just finishing my first guitar.
So the big question now is which finsh should i do.
FP is no option, because i need to pratice it first for a several time.

I just find some good varnish which is quite good for a beginner like me.
https://www.joha.eu/shop/en/guitar-varnish/index.htm

The dealer told me, that the oil varnish is special. After the aplication the guitar looks dull (not glossy). Actually I like the idea (vintage). BUT ist a flamenco guitar and at the end I`m going to put a golpeador on it. And... the golpeador is ...hmmm...glossy.

So.. I`m not sure how it`s going to look like after...

Has anybody some experiance?



Stephen Eden -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 8 2015 9:22:27)

I think it's more a matter of taste. If you think it will look odd then no one saying it will be fine will help you with that. However I personally think it will look fine.

Personally I would go a head and french polish it. There is only one way to get good at it and that is to do it. Plus it's no big deal if it doesn't look good straight away you can keep at it until you are happy. It's also easy enough remove if you want to start again.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 8 2015 16:19:55)

I personally like Oil varnish a lot.
Its easy to apply and it is acoustically on par with French Polish and a thin nitro lacquer.

I dont use it because I´m in this game professionally and clients want FP. And also because oilvarnishes need a good amount of (smelly) drying time
I have finished a handfull of guitars in Oilvarnish and 4 violins. And i might finish a guitar in oil varnish again.

I dont know the product you mention. I have used TrueOil, which is NOT an oil but a varnish. It doesnt penetrate more than other finishes, it hardens and you can apply many layers and build thickness (=varnish). If you apply enough layers, it can be handrubbed to a very beautifull gloss.
You must have patience, but its easy to work with.

Besides that, I agree with SEden. Everyone can finish a guitar with French Polish. You will make errors and get frustrated, but it will be finished and you´ll learn a lot.



Erixon -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 8 2015 20:41:38)

Hey Perrate, I'd say just go ahead and try FP, it is really worth it. I recently did my first FP too and I'm totally mindblown how awesome it turned out at the end. After I finished I couldn't even stop looking at the guitar, so beautiful gloss and antique touch it has received. And the best thing that I learned is that the finish is not fragile at all (on the contrary to the popular belief)
However, I did it a bit differently, I didn't use oil (on purpose, I wanted to avoid longer curing time and stickiness). I'm playing the guitar daily now for few weeks, still no sticking at all, despite it often gets in contact with my skin and body heat while playing. So it is possible to avoid oil, but rubbing gets a bit trickier. Surface is not 100% glass-smooth, but nevertheless it shines terrific.

Watch some tutorials on YT how the sessions are done, there are dozens of good videos. It may give you some initial ideas and guidelines. You can try it on a piece of wood first to become familiar with the feeling and rubbing technique.

Here is the final product:





Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 9 2015 7:49:54)

Erixon
You have gotten something wrong there
The oil doesnt make shellack cure slower or make it more sticky. Not at all. The oil seperates from the shellack right away and can be removed.

We use oil because it makes the rubbing a LOT easyer and you can apply thicker coats in one go.

Nice looking guitar btw.[:)]



Erixon -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 9 2015 10:49:00)

Thank you Anders, I really appreciate you liked it.
I thought so, but I wasn't entirely sure. I had a great amount of repair works done on this guitar, sealing cracks, closing one nasty rectangular opening on the side after removing the preamp originally installed, making new fretboard, putting new frets, making new bridge and rather complicated set up adjustments in order to compensate for rather high action on the 12th fret, all in all I did my best and I'm quite proud of the result to be honest since the guitar now sounds much more complete than ever before. Also, made a new ebony nut and saddle.

When the guitar came into my possession it had a dull, sticky and somewhat unprofessionally done fresh FP job on its back, apparently to mask some cracks. After some time dirt has been catching into it and my assumption was that it has been the result of too much oil been used during polishing. Don't know, the surface did not look or feel right. I heard some other luthier saying that drying of shellac may increase to months if too much oil gets trapped between layers of shellac. So I avoided it cause I needed the guitar look and feel dry at the end. But I may have misunderstood. What is you opinion for the cause of sticky shellac?



constructordeguitarras -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 10 2015 17:51:52)

I used to finish guitars with oil varnish (Epiphanes brand), before I mastered French polishing. I stopped using varnish because the fumes in the house were making me sick. But it makes an extremely durable and beautiful finish. Many coats are usually necessary (5 to 10), with sanding in between, and a final leveling sanding and then buffing with abrasives. I also sometimes had some problems with varnish not curing on exotic woods, such as rosewood and ebony.



Perrate -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 10 2015 18:41:10)

Thank you for all the response. You help me me to choose. I will order the oil varnish this week. Why: During the process of makeing the guitar I really felt in love with the wood. The smell, the surface, the carracter the hole haptics. I hope that the varnish will keep a little bit of this feeling. Maybe more than a thick FP layer. Maybe. As soon as the guitar is finish I will post some pics.

Of corse one day I`m going to try FP.

By the way, the soundboard I got from Swizerland. Near the place where I live. It`s tonewood from Bergün. I have here a short promotion film about this company.
Maybe it`s intresting for you.




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 11 2015 7:46:50)

Ahh, Moonwood from Bergün. Lovely material, I have used many soundboards from them and still have a few lying around.
(Please, if someone now wants to discuss moonwood, make a new thread! There´s plenty of space [;)])

I understand your choice, a semi-gloss or matte oil varnish finish is very beautifull and nice to touch. Make sure you give each layer enough time to dry before applying the next one. That is very important. And leave it a good while to final dry. before putting the tap plate on.
You can make the tap-plate less glossy by lightly rubbing it with steelwool 0000 and micromesh 3200 grit. And if the finish ends up to glossy for your taste, you can degloss it with the steelwool as well, but with a very light hand. It rubbs mor than you think.



Erixon -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 11 2015 9:44:16)

This is quite interesting, so far I have not heard about oil varnish at all, except oils used for general polishing of fretboards. But I guess those are two different things, right?



constructordeguitarras -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 11 2015 15:03:15)

The way I am using the term "oil varnish" is in the traditional sense. Traditionally, varnish was made by heating (cooking) a vegetable oil that can "dry." In the industry they are called "drying oils." Such an oil is linseed oil. Nowadays soy bean oil is also used. The way they dry is by polymerizing--the molecules link together to form one big piece of plastic. Oil varnishes can have many kinds of additives that control the properties, such as resins and catalysts for drying (and solvent to make application easy) and flatting agents to reduce the gloss. The initial cooking of the oil thickens it; that is, causes it to partially dry. Drying agents such as certain metal salts cause it to dry quickly when exposed to air. Resins can make it harder or tougher or more flexible.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Oil varnish on a blanca? (Dec. 11 2015 18:14:29)

Funny you say that you havent heard about oil varnish. In the "good old days" varnish was oil varnish.
Its used a lot on wooden boats. Its very beautifull and flexible. The brand that Ethan mentioned is very famous for their boat oilvarnish. But it stinks and has a tendency to give headaches etc. So ventilate well



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